Substance and health

July 22, 1981

Substance has more to do with health than we may realize. Christian Science shows that as we get a better understanding of true substance, we bring out more soundness in our lives -- physically as well as morally and spiritually. If poor health threatens, we can rely on a consecrated adoption of real substance through prayer and Christian living to restore harmony.

Substance is God. Therefore real substance is unchanging good. Because man is the idea of God, he is the image of the eternal and the infinite. Man is spiritual. The absolute health, or harmony, of the divine Mind has its embodiment, or reflection, in the compound idea man. Paul writes: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" n1

Since it is not eternal and clearly not the likeness of God, who is Spirit, the mortal body is not the temple "which ye have of God." It is a counterfeit, a false idol of the carnal mind. In the Christian Science textbook, Mary Baker Eddy n2 explains the difference: "To himself, mortal and material man seems to be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is material, temporal.

n2 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

"On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, which mortal hope for. He reflects the divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal entity." n3

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 301.

A painful cyst on my eyelid some time ago forced me to prove these truths. For six months I prayed only cursorily about the condition, hoping it would let me alone. Finally realizing that to evade the demand for focused, consecrated prayer was wrong, I began to work daily on the idea of true substance. Mrs. Eddy's definition of that term consistently became my focal point: "Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: 'The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'" n4

n4 ibid.,m p. 468.

That definition helped open my thought to many healing views of Truth. In my real selfhood, I saw, only the harmonious substance of God was being manifested. A discordant, material growth could not possibly be present in Spirit, nor in its reflection, man. Nothing really needed healing or removing because God, Love, occupied all space and consciousness with His perfect substantiality. I knew my growth in the understanding of spiritual substance could eliminate any false belief of harmful growth.

After I had prayed in this way for some time longer, the lump entirely disappeared.

How grateful I was to learn that God Himself is the real source of both substance and health! DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thus saith the Lord, . . . when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour . . . . Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; . . . even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. Isaiah 43:1, 2, 3, 5, 7